Jeff Gets Samardzija-ed

[donk33]

Mar 25, 2018 23:18:16 GMT -5 rog said:

But let's look at who Jeff really is. He's a guy that was tied for lead in losses in the NL last season. That is not a leaderboard I want my #3 starter to be topping out on.


Rog -- This doesn't literally apply to the game now, but it used to be said that a pitcher had to be pretty good to lose 20 games. The idea was that if the pitcher wasn't decent, he wouldn't be out there enough to lose 20. I don't know the last time a pitcher lost 20, but it must be a long time ago. But when your team ties for the most losses in baseball, one might expect one of its pitchers to lead the league in losses.

I don't think anyone has yet explained how Jeff's record means more than Madison's does, when Jeff had easily the higher win percentage than Madison.

dk..he also gave up fewer homers...prorated.....

[rog]

I don't care about the ERAs or any stat you have ready to respond to this post with, Rog, so save it. I care about what I see on the field. The drive to win.

Matt Cain had it. Jeff Samardjiza? Nope.


Rog -- First of all, Matt Cain was a much better pitcher than Jeff Samardzija. I don't think that is in question. His ERA was .42 runs lower. I'll have more on that later -- whether it be pro-Matt or pro-Jeff -- but second of all, you have made it clear your mind is already closed. I feel sorry for you.

By the way, that was Matt and Jeff, not Mutt and Jeff.




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[rog]

So let's look at the facts.

Matt's career winning percentage was .468. He was 14 games below .500. Jeff's is 439. He's 19 games below .500. Look at that we would say, see Matt didn't get much run support, yet his winning percentage is higher than Jeff's.

Yet the facts say that the Giants scored 10 MORE runs for Matt than he gave up. His record probably should have been .500 or more. Jeff's teams have scored 89 FEWER runs than he's given up. His won-loss percentage is right around where we would expect it.

If Matt truly knew "how to win," and Jeff just hangs loose out there, with hardly a care about winning or losing, how can that be? Matt was the better pitcher by over two-fifths of a run per game. Even he received far more runs than Jeff. Yet Jeff's won-loss record is nearly as good as Matt's was.

You can say that you're going by what you see, Boagie, and I don't doubt you are doing just that. But that facts say that what you see doesn't matter when it comes to wins and losses -- at least not between Matt and Jeff.

Yeah, I know you don't care about the numbers. The bad thing about that though is that it can bring you to the wrong conclusion.

It's kind of a battle between what you see, Boagie, and the facts. I'm sure you see the game well. But the facts see it even better.

[Islandboagie]

Yes, they're facts..but how many runs the Giants scored for Cain throughout his career vs. the runs Samardjiza's teams have scored for him is irrelevant. It really adds nothing to the conversation. A lot of those runs could have been scored in a small percentage of the games. But you knew that already. You're just trying to play a smoke and mirror game and it's honestly just a waste of my time. We get it, you know how to look up meaningless stats, we already knew that about you.

Come back with an honest opinion of your own and then we can talk.

[rog]

Yes, they're facts..but how many runs the Giants scored for Cain throughout his career vs. the runs Samardjiza's teams have scored for him is irrelevant. It really adds nothing to the conversation. A lot of those runs could have been scored in a small percentage of the games.


Rog -- Denial, Boagie. I agree that the run distribution could be different, and that could have a bearing. But the difference in the number of runs of support for Samardzija compared to the runs he has yielded is not only far greater than Matt's, it's negative while Matt's is slightly positive.

In other words, the information is out there. Just go to the game logs of each pitcher, which are available on Baseball-Reference and include the number of times each of the single digit numbers were scored in support and the number of times double digit runs were scored.

This is far from conclusive, but I looked for years where Jeff and Matt had the same amount of run support, so I could compare the number of runs of support they had when they received five or more runs. Matt had 90, and Jeff had 87. Not a whole lot of difference.

If you want to prove your point, look up ALL their seasons and see if you can see a pattern that shows that a ton more runs were scored for Matt in high-scoring games where if he pitched well, he wouldn't need all that support. They you can see if the large spread in run differential for Jeff and for Matt had a lot to do with a disproportionate number of games where that run support was in a sense overkill and would throw the numbers off.

Certainly it's possible, although that wasn't the case in Matt's 2009 season (4.26 runs of support) and Jeff's 2015 year (4.28 runs of support). The samples are large enough that usually they would average out, but that isn't always the case. See if you can find sufficient evidence to support your point, Boagie.

If you can, I'll certainly acknowledge it -- and learn something in the process.




Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/4352/jeff-gets-samardzija-ed?page=2#ixzz5AqCX1XWN

[rog]

A lot of those runs could have been scored in a small percentage of the games. But you knew that already. You're just trying to play a smoke and mirror game and it's honestly just a waste of my time. We get it, you know how to look up meaningless stats, we already knew that about you.

Come back with an honest opinion of your own and then we can talk.


Rog -- My opinion was honest, and I acknowledge your point could be true -- although the sample is large enough that it isn't likely the case. Unlikely, but not absolute.

As for looking up stats that add something positive to my "meaningless" stats, you are free to do so. It is likely both of us will learn something from your work.

It's not all that hard or even time consuming to do (although it certainly DOES take some time), but usually when I spend the time on doing so, you simply disregard it anyway. I can assure you that if you demonstrate your assumption strongly, I won't ignore or disregard it.

You see, my opinions ARE honest. Otherwise they wouldn't be worth much, would they? I often take the time to find out if my hypothesis is correct. Usually it is -- but not always. Despite our being headed down a track that wouldn't indicate so, it's possible you're right here.

Just let us know what you find. But don't take the position (as you often do) that the stats are meaningless anyway. It was YOU who said the numbers could be off kilter because the distribution was skewed. As I say, you could be right. The odds don't favor it, but the odds aren't 100%, either.

I guess what I'm saying is that you could be right, and the ball is in your court to demonstrate it. You threw out a possible flaw in the numbers I presented. The odds of your being right are greater than zero. Go prove your point. If you can't (or won't), admit that you have thrown out a hypothesis but not bothered to test it, rendering it of little value.

You could be right. Take a little time to demonstrate that you are.




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[rog]

This is the last I'm going to do, but I took a look at Jeff's 2014 (3.59 runs) and Matt's 2007 (3.20 runs). 75 runs of Jeff's support came in spurts of five runs or more. 36 runs of Matt's support came in games of five or more runs. It looks like about twice as much of Jeff's run support was superflous as was the case with Matt.

You've got another half dozen or more seasons to compare, but the trend will have to be quite counter to the trend I found in the two years I'm mentioning here. I didn't pick these years because I thought they would favor Jeff. I picked them because the average runs of support were similar.

It looks like the odds are REALLY against you here, Boagie, but long odds are sometimes overcome. Take a shot at it and see how it comes out. One thing I'm almost certain of is that it will be closer than the two examples I came across here. But these two years are strongly in the opposite direction of your hypothesis.

The only way to find out for sure though is to do the research, or as you prefer to call it, study. Go study up a bit, Boagie!

[Islandboagie]

Again, just smoke and mirror stats.

[rog]

OK, Boagie. You tell us how we can determine if Jeff truly makes less out of his run support than Matt did. You can be sure the Giants have guys studying such things, but I don't think you have a clue as to how to proceed. And if you don't, I guess you're simply putting up a smoke and mirrors argument.